should not understand, nothing could be better done.

753

_Homo existens te Deum facit.

Scriptum est, Dii estis, et non potest solvi Scriptura.

Haec infirmitas non est ad vitam et est ad mortem.

Lazarus dormit, et deinde dixit: Lazarus mortuus est._[281]

754

The apparent discrepancy of the Gospels.[282]

755

What can we have but reverence for a man who foretells plainly things
which come to pass, and who declares his intention both to blind and to
enlighten, and who intersperses obscurities among the clear things which
come to pass?

756

The time of the first advent was foretold; the time of the second is not
so; because the first was to be obscure, and the second is to be
brilliant, and so manifest that even His enemies will recognise it. But,
as He was first to come only in obscurity, and to be known only of those
who searched the Scriptures ...

757

God, in order to cause the Messiah to be known by the good and not to be
known by the wicked, made Him to be foretold in this manner. If the
manner of the Messiah had been clearly foretold, there would have been
no obscurity, even for the wicked. If the time had been obscurely
foretold, there would have been obscurity, even for the good. For their
[goodness of heart] would not have made them understand, for instance,
that the closed _mem_ signifies six hundred years. But the time has been
clearly foretold, and the manner in types.

By this means, the wicked, taking the promised blessings for material
blessings, have fallen into error, in spite of the clear prediction of
the time; and the good have not fallen in error. For the understanding
of the promised blessings depends on the heart, which calls "good" that
which it loves; but the understanding of the promised time does not
depend on the heart. And thus the clear prediction of the time, and the
obscure prediction of the blessings, deceive the wicked alone.

758

[Either the Jews or the Christians must be wicked.]

759

The Jews reject Him, but not all. The saints receive Him, and not the
carnal-minded. And so far is this from being against His glory, that it
is the last touch which crowns it. For their argument, the only one
found in all their writings, in the Talmud and in the Rabbinical
writings, amounts only to this, that Jesus Christ has not subdued the
nations with sword in hand, _gladiumt uum, potentissime_.[283] (Is this
all they have to say? Jesus Christ has been